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Monday, June 8, 2015

Authors Behaving Badly: Dylan Saccoccio

Hi everyone! Today's author behaving badly is Dylan Saccoccio, the author of The Boy and the Peddler of Death.

Looks pretty cool, right? I admit that it's something that I'd probably pick up if I came across it in a bookstore or in my Amazon storefront. It also bills itself as a mixture of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, which makes it even better.

This is what drew in the Goodreads user Cait, who eagerly purchased the book... and didn't like it. This happens, so all Cait did was post an extremely brief one paragraph, one star review on Goodreads where she just says that she didn't like it.

Hours after Cait posted the review, Saccoccio responded. And boy did he respond.

I don't think I've seen an author meltdown this severe since Candace Sams started threatening to call the FBI over negative reviews for her book Electra Galaxy's Mr Interstellar Feller(later republished as Galaxy Man through Smashwords).

What did Saccoccio say? It's more like what didn't he say. His reaction to Cait's review was so over the top that I'd almost say that this was some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque troll-style performance art where he published a book and eagerly waited for the inevitable negative reviews to roll in so he could start his true work.

Yes, it's that crazy.

The initial comments have been removed but you can see the interaction here. Saccoccio accused Cait of being deliberately nasty and said that her one negative review was going to legit ruin his career, as in every possible reader is going to read this review and decline to purchase the book. He also called another commentator "Ba'al" and spouted more commentary to the point where things got truly surreal- and that's just in the first page of comments.

I don't think I could sum up the gist of his comments any better than the following statement written by Saccoccio himself:

"I'm not embarrassed at all. And all of you who are taking Cait S's side, what you're doing in the bigger picture is waging war on the consciousness of humanity. The end. If this interaction prevents you from reading my work, it's okay. I'm not offended. I don't want your money, nor do I want you having a bad experience by reading my books. What bothers me is when people that operated at a low level of consciousness defame the work of people that are trying to help humanity, and no one helps humanity better than artists."

I really can't tell if he's serious or if this someone trying to troll book readers. There are interviews like this one that are in the same vein as Saccoccio's comments on Goodreads, so this might be the guy's honest personality. There's more evidence to suggest that this guy is just stuck in some Shia Labeouf level of idiocy than him being an Andy Kaufman.